


Want

by AJfanfic



Series: Geraskier Week 2020 [5]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Emotionally Constipated Jaskier | Dandelion, Geraskier Week, Inspired by Richard Siken, Life Debt, M/M, Not really though, Realization, Wishbone - Freeform, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22471459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJfanfic/pseuds/AJfanfic
Summary: You saved my life. I owe you everything.Geralt doesn't like debts because they can be paid and then people go their separate ways.Jaskier likes debts because it gives him something to withhold, something to keep them coming back.Neither of them is comfortable with what they want.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635637
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Want

_ You saved my life he says I owe you everything. _

_ You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s _

_ relentless, _

_ keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood, _

_ you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours. _

_ But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak, _

_ I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say. _

_ You keep saying I owe you, I owe… but you say the same thing every time. _

_ Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk. _

_ Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving _

_ and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt. _

_ Don’t bother. _

_ \- Excerpt from “Wishbone” by Richard Siken _

You saved my life. I owe you everything. The words slide like ice down Geralt’s spine. He’s heard them often enough, frequently grudgingly, at times admiringly. From royals and peasants alike. But never from Jaskier. Three years into their friendship he’d begun to expect he’d never hear them, no matter how many times he saved his life. 

You must want something. Geralt wants and wants, desperately wants. Nothing Jaskier has or ever will offer him, and nothing he could ever take. Fulfilling a debt is the same as completing a contract, it’s the end of something. It’s the equation of actions, of living, with some monetary value that means both parties can walk away satisfied. They have walked miles and miles and every step takes Geralt further from satisfaction even as their paths slowly converge from opposite sides of the road. Every step dangles satisfaction in front of him just to jerk it away like he’s a cat and it’s a feather on a string. And even still, Geralt can’t walk away. Can’t let the contract be fulfilled.

So he says:

Just get me bandages. I’m bleeding, I’m not just making conversation.

And he lets himself get angry and he shouts:

One of these days, your luck is going to run out!

Jaskier laughs as he cleans his wounds and he says:

I don’t need luck, I have you!

Without knowing how very true it is.

Jaskier never pays his debts, not a one. To women and men, to bars and gambling houses. He makes like he’ll settle the tab until the last minute. He doesn’t want to be forgotten, even if his best alternative is being that asshole who ripped us off. He’s a heartbreaker, and a liar, and a cheat, and it all comes far more naturally than the famous poet, guest lecturer at the most prestigious university. He’s certain of his talent, that’s never been the problem. But the vagrant part of the bardic lifestyle came nearly as easily as the songs. He is not a reliable man. He’s not cruel about it, or he tries not to be. He tells you upfront that what you get is what you see.

You saved my life. I owe you everything. It’s far more than he’d usually gamble, but Geralt drives a hard bargain. Jaskier needs to be needed, he needs to be wanted, and Geralt holds it just above his head like a sweet on the edge of a high shelf, even now denied the ability to deny him. He won’t take the fucking deal. Which might be a good thing, because if Geralt asked, Jaskier would give him everything, everything he’d intended to hold back. He’s a good dancer but watching the witcher slide through the claws that would catch him he thinks that Geralt might be better.

They sleep pressed together under furs on cold nights and everywhere they touch Geralt wants to check for the blisters of a burn. He wants to push him away but the winter cuts sharp and he would never let it cut him so he puts his body between the threat and the bard and bears it. He wants to pull him inside himself and let him rearrange his landscape to his liking. He keeps his hands pressed to his own chest like a prayer and lets Jaskier come to him. Geralt doesn’t sleep and thinks this must be what sickness is like, or maybe madness because he feels perpetually off-kilter and out of control, like a wolf on a leash. Jaskier sings about how good he is, how strong and lovely. Geralt wants so very badly to be good but cannot bring himself to look Jaskier in the face in the blue light of the cave they’ve sheltered in, and see how well he’s done.

Geralt’s hair glows orange in the weak light of the fire at their backs and Jaskier cannot take his eyes off of him. He counts his breaths, coveting them like opals, drops of fire against his neck. When he’d said everything, he meant everything. He could give to Geralt for his entire life, give everything he is, and never pay him back for these treasures. It’s strange to have a debt that he can never pay. It means he doesn’t have to run from it. There is no end to the contract, not until the day comes that the best thing he can give Geralt is his absence. Even then, it will still be for love of him that he leaves. Geralt doesn’t know. He knows this because he’d been purposefully unclear when he’d set out the terms of the deal. He’d said: You saved my life. I owe you everything. They are both true, not connected statements. Lives are cheap. As lovely as he and his words are, Jaskier does not exempt himself from this truth. He owes Geralt everything. Yes, but not for his life. For these moments, for the warmth of his body and breath, for the steadying hand on his shoulder as they cross swamps, for the glint of his eyes in the sunset as he pretends to not enjoy some song. That, he could not pay back with all of him.

Geralt does not remember his dreams. He only knows that he often wakes shaking, heart racing, palms sweaty, the taste of fear sour on his tongue on the nights when he sleeps alone. When he is awake, he thinks about Jaskier and he thinks about summer, and he wants.

Jaskier is a poet but he does not have words for some feelings. He has metaphors and images and the taste of the color associated with the feeling. He had thought it might be debt. He’d described it as ‘a longing to be needed by someone else’. It’s simpler than that. but he doesn’t have one word.

There is one.

It’s on the tip of his tongue.

There’s a bird singing it somewhere when he kisses it into Geralt’s mouth.


End file.
